Monday, April 26, 2010

Brave, brave Molly Norris she bravely ran away away...

'In declaring May 20th to be "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day," Seattle artist Molly Norris created a poster-like cartoon showing many objects -- from a cup of coffee to a box of pasta to a tomato -- all claiming to be the likeness of Muhammad...

On Friday, Norris told a radio talk show host in Seattle that she came up with the idea because "as a cartoonist, I just felt so much passion about what had happened..." noting that "it's a cartoonist's job to be non-PC."...

...Her stark website today reads: ""I am NOT involved in "Everybody Draw Mohammd [sic] Day!""I made a cartoon that went viral and I am not going with it. Many other folks have used my cartoon to start sites, etc. Please go to them as I am a private person who draws stuff," she writes...

...Once it became a national story she reeled back, asking Savage -- in an email he provided to The Ticket -- if he would "be kind enough to switch out my poster" with another one -- a much tamer version which has no images attributed to Muhammad.

"I am sort of freaked out about my name/image being all over the place," her e-mail reads...

...She doesn't appear to be alone. The creator of a Facebook page dedicated to the day has bowed out as well. Jon Wellington told the Washington Post (before abandoning ship) that he created the page because he "loved [Norris's] creative approach to the whole thing -- whimsical and nonjudgmental."

While he was still associated with his own event he said: "To me, this is all about freedom of expression and tolerance of other viewpoints, so I hope you'll help make this a sandbox that anyone can play in, if they want. I don't think it'd be right under the circumstances for me (or anyone) to censor inflammatory posts *ahem*, but let's be welcoming and inclusive, mmkay?"

Apparently the posts weren't "welcoming" enough, as on Sunday morning he announced his departure from the cause. "I am aghast that so many people are posting deeply offensive pictures of the Prophet," he writes. "Y'all go ahead if that's your bag, but count me out."'

A simple, every-day tale of lefty luvvies living inside a bubble, a hazy mazy dream world where getting in peoples faces and being challenging is a good, peaceful, loving affair.

Naturally, at some point, the realization breaks in that angry young men with bushy beards will show up at some point with stabby knives and/or rusty swords, and procede to reveal these luvvies gastro-intestinal tracts in quite unhygenic ways.

And suddenly, making disgusting jokes about Jesus and Buddha seems perfectly satisfactorily 'challenging'...